“The problem is Sam Altman”: OpenAI Insiders don’t trust CEO

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/the-problem-is-sam-altman-openai-insiders-dont-trust-ceo/

43 Comments

  1. The guy who wants to bribe all the world’s poor into scanning their eyeballs into a giant database? Why wouldn’t you trust him?

  2. There’s nothing to trust. He’s a salesman and a fundraiser through and through. If you trust him to say or do anything honest you’re a fool.

  3. They probably shouldn’t have all signed letters of support for him when the board tried to shitcan him for lying to them a few years ago.

  4. Man this is one creepy fucking dude. Seriously, just look at him for a moment here.

    I am a lifelong atheist, and even I am not entirely convinced that I am not looking directly at the fucking anti-christ.

  5. Irreverent_Bard on

    Get rid of him. Honestly, I don’t want to touch anything associated with the guy.

  6. Expensive_Finger_973 on

    No one should ever trust a CEO to do anything but enrich themselves and their investors. It is literally their job.

  7. Gonna have to go read the New Yorker piece this is aggregating, because I remember when the charity board fired him for being fundamentally untrustworthy and OpenAI’s employees and investors (including Satya Nadella) forced them to bring him back, and then made the board resign

    So unless this is a mea culpa, I’m not sure what ‘insider’ means here. He’s been pretty good at pushing out the people who go against him

  8. When the Ogliarchs get tired of Sam Altman screwing up their portfolios maybe they will lock him away with Sam Bankman-Fried. Two Sam’s in a Cell

  9. Disgruntled-Cacti on

    They’re only saying this now because OpenAI has lost its luster and they’re panicking about the value of their equity.

    It has been well known and well documented that Altman is two faced and ethically bankrupt for years now. His dramatic firing from OpenAI several years ago is where this exact issue came to a head. However, the OpenAI staff revolted to get him back because they believed he would make them rich beyond their wildest imaginations.

    Now that that has changed, the OpenAI staff have suddenly found deep misgivings with his conduct.

  10. To be fair, how many outsiders trust him? Who’s left at this point? His mum?

  11. Upset-Government-856 on

    He’s got one skill. Convincing rich people to give him a lot of money based off wild claims.

    He shouldn’t be allowed to do literally anything else including talk to employees, talk to the public, or make product decisions.

  12. GribbitsGoblinPI on

    Should have trusted the Board when they got rid of him, then. It was employees who demanded he come back.

  13. *Translation:* Sam Altman is bad PR. We’d like the board to remove him and replace him with someone who can do our evil machinations quietly.

  14. You mean to tell me that the board and others who sounded the alarm about a sleazy salesman were right all along?

  15. Everytime I see his face I think “This is a psychopath trying to mimic human body language”

  16. Previous_Soil_5144 on

    *”You need to understand that Sam can never be trusted … He is a sociopath. He would do anything.”* – Aaron Swartz

  17. cantfocuswontfocus on

    I remember this sub was heavily glazing him when the hostile takeover attempt from his board failed. I wonder where all those glazers are. Probably still here, pretending they were always against this.

  18. He’s a con artist. Just like many of the tech bros. It will always be ‘full AGI is coming real soon guys I swear! Give me another billion’ until the inevitable crash of our economy

  19. Sam Altman is a confirmed enemy to humanity by his own words. He views humanity as a just another resource and went so far as to lie about the cost of humans vs AI in training and operations based on energy consumed.

    I dont trust him either.

  20. AbletonUser333 on

    >On the one hand, OpenAI said it plans to push for policies to “keep people first” as AI starts “outperforming the smartest humans even when they are assisted by AI.” To achieve this, the company vows to remain “clear-eyed” and transparent about risks, which it acknowledged includes monitoring for extreme scenarios like AI systems evading human control or governments deploying AI to undermine democracy. Without proper mitigation of such risks, “people will be harmed,” OpenAI warned, before describing how the company could be trusted to advocate for a future where achieving superintelligence means a “higher quality of life for all.”

    Just to be clear, this is OpenAI’s usual marketing. They try to make their technology seem dangerous, and the next round of funding comes rolling in. It isn’t actually dangerous, of course, but that’s what they want you to believe. They’ve been running this same grift since sometime in 2024, and it still works well, apparently. At the same time they’re portraying the CEO as ruthless, willing to do whatever it takes to win.

    Also, anyone who is still getting scammed by Altman only has themselves to blame. The guy has a miles-long trail of conman behavior in his past, dating all the way back to his days at Reddit. I mean that in every sense of the word. It is no surprise that he is leading the world’s biggest con (LLMs being “intelligent”).

  21. Tech CEOs have been foundering since their dictator investment seems to be crashing and burning.

  22. Upbeat_Influence2350 on

    I mean, OpenAI would likely have already folded without his deceptive financial schemes.

  23. FyreJadeblood on

    Sure, I can get that.

    But the real issue is that LLM AI is 70 percent marketing. For the use cases that companies like OpenAI are trying sell LLMs as a concept for, It has hit serious barriers and has failed to pierce those barriers for more than a year now. The threat of model collapse is only becoming more present and that’s only one part of the equation. At the end of the day, LLM AI will never ever be anything more than what it is currently. It will NEVER be general intelligence or anything approaching that. It is impossible for it to be or become that at a fundamental level. Outside of niche and scientific applications, it is reaching the end of the road.

  24. Leading_Disaster236 on

    The man is a creep, and megalomaniac. He did not invent provide any insights or even steer the technology but he’s hellbent on Recklessly unleashing AI in the world like it’s inevitable and there is nothing we can do to prevent its destruction. F this guy and Believe his sister